December 10, 2012

SPECIAL HOLIDAY COMMENTARY
Boy Toys: Pink or Blue for You?

Dennis Barbour
December 9, 2012

With the holiday season fast approaching the war on boys (as well as on Christmas) is heating up, spurred by a recent decision of the Swedish government to encourage “gender equality” in a number of areas, including toys. In response to government pressure and changing Swedish cultural norms, TOP-TOY Group, a licensee of the Toys “R” Us brand, has published a gender-neutral toy catalog for the Christmas season in Sweden. The publication includes images of girls playing with toy guns and pictures of boys playing with toy blow-dryers.

As might be expected, the Americans, who have strong views about all matters Swedish, have taken up arms on the matter. The first major American opinion piece on the subject, You Can Give a Boy a Doll, but You Can’t Make Him Play With It by Christina Hoff Sommers, appeared on the website of the Atlantic on December 6.

In her article, Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute whose book The War Against Boys caused its own stir some years ago, challenged what would appear on the face of it to be utopian silliness on the part of the Swedes. Sommers argues that innate differences between boys and girls, and hence the things that they like to play with, do exist. “They (boys and girls) are different, and nothing short of radical and sustained behavior modification could significantly change their elemental play preferences. Children, with few exceptions, are powerfully drawn to sex-stereotyped play,” she said. Addressing the troubling issue of how any society could enforce such a mandate, Sommers makes the point that “To succeed, the Swedish parents, teachers and authorities are going to have to police—incessantly—boys’ powerful attraction to large-group rough-and-tumble play and girls’ affinity for intimate theatrical play. ”

For the first two days after it appeared the post was featured on the Atlantic’s front page and more than 2200 readers “recommended” it. It has also been on the Atlantic’s “Most Popular” list for two days.

The non-Swedish reaction to the Swede’s move has been harsh and strong, on both sides of the issue. Just google “Swedish toys” for a taste. In the meantime, Sommers’ critique has garnered support from a number of conservative American commentators, including Andrew Sullivan, John Tierney @JohnTierneyNYT, Byron York @byronyork, Eli Lake @EliLake, Mark Perry @Mark_J_Perry and David Frum. Sullivan, while generally supportive of Sommer’s view, had his own unique personal perspective on the matter as a gay man: “..by showing that gender non-conformism is not abhorrent, and even part of the childhood landscape, a little bit of freedom opens up for some children, and a little less stigma. I’m ok with that.

And the stigma does hurt. I remember my grandmother watching my younger brother run around the house with a toy truck at Christmas, while I was withdrawn and reading. “Well at least you have one normal son,” she told my mother, who was, as I recall, speechless. And a little part of my 8-year-old self-esteem shattered.”

I had a similar experience as a child. One Christmas I asked for a doll. My horrified mother instructed my father to buy me a chemistry set instead. Since even at that early age I had more interest in the arts than the sciences I had no clue what to do with that chemistry set, nor any interest in it. I cannot remember how it came to its demise, but to that it surely came. Undeterred, the next Christmas I asked for a kitchen set. This time my father, oddly enough, overruled my mother and bought me a kitchen set. I could not have been more delighted.

The issues of gender are long-standing and extraordinarily complex. These days they have been made even more so by changing definitions of what it means to be a man, or a woman. The roles of both men and women in heterosexual relationships are changing in ways that blur the lines between “masculine” and “feminine”. At the same time the very definition of marriage is changing rapidly as homosexual unions are legalized. Then, there is the ever increasing issue of gay parenting.

What it means to be male or female is now up for grabs. That’s a bit chaotic, but in that chaos we need to listen to both and all sides of the debate about how best to rear our children. In the end we all have their best interests at heart, as well as the best interests of our society.

In the meantime, I say that if the Swedes don’t stop with this sort of silliness they’re going to jeopardize their OECD Better Life rankings . Those show the Swedes are ahead of us Americans in education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction and work/life balance. But all this nonsense. What is wrong with those people?

News Clips

Uncircumcised boys may face more urinary infections
Infections of the kidney, bladder and urethra happen in uncircumcised baby boys at ten times the rate of circumcised boys, and over a lifetime uncircumcised men are four times more likely to experience one, according to a new analysis of past research.
NBS News
December 7, 2012
New Fantasyland Focused on Boys
Gaston is one of the stars of New Fantasyland. The focus on a male character from “Beauty and the Beast” — one of the most popular Disney movies in recent decades — is just one of the many ways Walt Disney World has focused on boys in this expansion of the Magic Kingdom, the largest in the park’s history.
ABC News
December 6, 2012
Fractures Take High Toll on High School Athletes
Fractures account for about 10 percent of all injuries suffered by U.S. high school athletes, and can have a major physical, emotional and financial impact on the young competitors, according to a new study
MedLIne Plus
December 4, 2012
‘Synthetic Pot’ Sending Thousands of Young People to ER: Report
U.S emergency rooms tended to more than 11,400 cases of drug-related health complications specifically linked to the use of synthetic marijuana in 2010, a new government report reveals.
Medline Plus
December 4, 2012
Teen fighting down in many countries, not U.S
Fistfights among kids have become less common over the last decade in 19 of 30 countries surveyed in a new report. But fighting in other countries, including the U.S. and Canada, has remained steady.
Medline Plus
December 4, 2012
Bullied Teens May Suffer Lingering Trauma
Bullied teenagers can develop post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, according to a new study.
Medline Plus
December 4, 2012
Pre-K on the Range
Rural, conservative, impoverished Oklahoma has built the nation’s brightest model for early education.
American Prospect
December 4, 2012
‘Hiding’ Cigarettes in Stores Might Keep Kids From Smoking: Study
“Studies show that because tobacco displays and ads are so common in stores, they may give kids the false perception that smoking cigarettes is a common behavior.”
HealthFinder.gov
December 3, 2012

Opinion

Manhood, football and suicide
We must struggle, harder than ever, as men, as boys, as a nation, to reach the point where a heart-to-heart conversation is the first and only option, not a gun, not gun violence.
CNN
December 3, 2012

Reports

HIV in the United States: At A Glance
Almost 80 percent of all adolescent infections are to males. Nine out of 10 adolescent male HIV infections result from male-to-male sexual contact. The same proportion of adolescent females is infected from heterosexual contact.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
November 2012

International News

PAKISTAN

Terrorists drug young boys for suicide attacks, says minister
“Nowadays terrorists kidnap boys to turn them into suicide bombers. For this they even drug the boys when they are about to be used for suicide attacks.”
Dawn.com
December 4, 2012